


It Happened in Sun Valley

by empty_marrow



Category: Profiler (TV 1996)
Genre: Humor, Romance, casefic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empty_marrow/pseuds/empty_marrow
Summary: Welcome to Sun Valley, Oregon:  current home to 200 quirky citizens, one amnesiac Sheriff who has no idea he’s a serial killer, and Samantha Waters, who can’t wait for the snow to melt.  Don’t even get her started on the yaks.
Relationships: Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently the way to break a years-long writing hiatus is to jump back into my very first fandom while attempting to answer Three Big Questions: 
> 
> 1) what would you get if you combined an Otis, California-type small town with residents who were actually competent? 
> 
> 2) would it be possible for Samantha and Jack to have a conventional slow-burn romance if the circumstances were just right (see #1)?
> 
> 3) exactly how many yak puns can you fit into a single fic?

_Sun Valley, Oregon_

_December 1998_

Donna Dillon liked being the Mayor of her town ninety-nine percent of the time. She’d spent most of her life quite happily here, and she believed in the fundamental goodness of the citizens she served. They had their quirks – she supposed that some degree of quirkiness was a prerequisite for anyone who actually chose to live in a place where Mother Nature reliably cut them off from civilization for two months of the year – but they were generally kind, hard-working and dependable, the stuff good neighbors were made of.

  
All except for their late sheriff, who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo about dependability before he’d tottered off his roof in a drunken attempt at adjusting his Christmas lights two weeks earlier. Which meant, pending the appointment of a new sheriff, that she was stuck doing the nightly patrols along Suicide Pass to make sure no errant residents or clueless tourists got stranded in the ice.

  
Tonight that also meant that her anniversary dinner was getting cold and her wife was less than happy with her. This was the one percent of the time when she wondered if heading south to one of those little California mountain stops wouldn’t be a better idea. Someone must need a competent Mayor…

  
She looked down for a second to adjust the volume of the country/western Christmas cassette, because Kenny and Dolly were getting a little loud – then cursed and quickly guided her Jeep to the side of the road. In the gathering dusk she’d almost missed the distinct set of fresh tire tracks that slashed the road in half right in front of the “Dangerous Curves” sign, which lay twisted on its side in a pile of cracked asphalt and torn-up sod.

  
“Damn teenagers,” she grumbled as she stepped out of the car, flashlight in hand for a better inspection. She never understood the idiotic rite of passage that made every kid with a new drivers’ license want to cruise this stretch of road. Donna had lost count of the lucky ones who ended up with a wrecked car and pissed-off parents who grounded them till graduation; the unlucky ones who ended up with wrecked bodies or worse still haunted her.

  
A sweep of the flashlight showed more torn-up earth and broken tree branches leading down the steep incline to the bottom of the gully; she could just make out the upturned wheels of a white sedan that was resting on its roof. She picked her way carefully down the trail of damage, mindful of the slickness of the frozen ground, until she reached the vehicle.

  
It had clearly rolled several times before it landed; the front and rear ends had both sustained damage and the windshield was shattered, but there was no fire and no smell of leaking gasoline to suggest an imminent explosion. She squatted near the open driver’s side door to get a better look, then whistled in surprise when she registered the inverted logo: _Sheriff’s Department, Otis, CA._

  
Anniversary dinner long forgotten, Donna toggled the two-way radio at her side.

  
“Tim, you there? Over.”

  
“I’m here.” Tim Bitters’ familiar drawl was a welcome break in the ominous silence. “You still on patrol, Donna? We’ve got another storm coming in.”

  
“Yeah, that’s the problem, I just found an Otis police car at the bottom of the pass. Looks like it hit a patch of ice and rolled.”

  
“Any fire hazards that you see?”

  
“No, but I’d like to get it up out of the gully before the worst of the weather comes in just to be safe.”

  
“Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be over with the winch.” She heard barking on the other side of the radio, followed by a shushing sound. “Quiet, you two, this ain’t time for walkies, it’s work. Does Otis know it’s missing a police cruiser?”

  
Donna swept the beam of light over the dashboard, frowning at the suspicious dark liquid that streaked the steering wheel. “I haven’t heard anything on the scanner and I know there’s no official business till spring. Maybe it was stolen.”

  
“Well, some idiot picked a helluva time to joyride.”

  
“Truer words, right?” A new sound caught her attention, different from the moan of the rising wind, and she redirected the light towards the underbrush a few feet away. “My wife always says the teenage brain takes approximately twenty-five years to…oh, _shit!_ ”

“Donna?” Tim’s voice crackled over the static. “You OK?”

  
“Tim, you need to go pick up Bea on your way here. I just found the passengers.”

  
“They still alive?”

  
“Yeah, breathing but really banged up. They must’ve been able to crawl out of the car once it settled.” Donna shivered as the wind picked up and she began to see puffs of her breath with each word. “It’s a man and a woman. And he’s a cop.”

  
*

  
_2 hours earlier_

“You’re not going to get away with this, you sick bastard.”

  
Samantha Waters tried to put as much disdainful confidence into the words as she could, hoping that her anxiety and the cold weren’t making her voice shake. The amused smirk directed toward her in the rearview mirror suggested that her driver wasn’t impressed.

  
“I already have gotten away with it, Samantha.” The glee in the raspy voice didn’t fit the benign-looking man in the mirror, but it was all too familiar, a reminder of years of taunting phone calls and shadowy glimpses. “I’ve gotten away with _you_. And the brain trust at the FBI has no idea that it all played out right under their noses. Come on, I know you have to be a _little_ impressed at everything I’ve done. It was all for you, after all.”

“Impressed why, Jack? That you found a disciple? That you killed all those people and destroyed that entire town just to, what, teach me a lesson?” Sam grimaced as her vision blurred briefly, and she squinted at the graying skies that were sailing past her window, forcing down a wave of nausea.

  
“Sorry about the side-effects of the drug.” Bizarrely enough, Jack did sound genuinely sorry. “I was hoping you’d be involved enough by now to come with me willingly, but it never hurts to have a contingency plan.”

  
“I’ll never be a willing part of any plan of yours.”

  
She leaned back against the seat, breathing deeply and trying to clear the brain fog so she could piece together the past two days. She remembered flying back to California, immediately after confronting Donald Lucas with the evidence they’d found behind the Fence. Something in his stumbling responses and the way he’d called her “Sam,” never “Samantha,” had bothered her, and she found herself heading back across the country to revisit the crime scenes in Otis. She recalled meeting up with Sheriff Boast, thinking that something about him was different when they walked into the compound together…and then waking up in the back of a police cruiser with a pounding headache and zip ties around her wrists.

  
She remembered thinking that a confrontation with her father’s history was something better done in solitude, and leaving a message for Bailey not to worry about her, that she was taking a few days off to relax at a spa while Chloe and Angel were spending the week with Angel’s parents.

  
In retrospect, maybe that hadn’t been too smart.

  
“The VCTF will find me,” she said anyway, willing herself to believe it. “Bailey will –”

  
“Bailey will be as lost as the rest of them,” Jack snapped, and Sam made a mental note that Malone seemed to be a sore spot. “Nobody else understands our game, Samantha. It’s about you and me, end of story. If you don’t grasp that yet I’ll just have to give you a push in the right direction.”

  
She had no doubt as to what that push would entail. Sam looked out the window, searching for anything she could identify or commit to memory, but she saw nothing but trees against a grey sky. She could feel the car climbing and heard the intermittent crunch of tires over gravel.

  
“The mountains of the Pacific Northwest are a sight to behold.” Jack met her eyes again in the mirror. “So stately, so remote. You think Otis was out of the way? Why, there are towns up north that make it look like a metropolis.”

He cursed under his breath and gave the steering wheel a sharp yank; over the past few miles the road had been getting narrower and demanding more of his attention.

It had given Sam an idea.

  
The sedan was an older model; its seats were cracked and she could feel a sharp metal spring protruding from the leather upholstery behind her knees. It had been easy enough to slouch low under the pretext of being sick while she hooked the spring under the ties at her wrists. Now she moaned for effect to draw Jack’s eyes to her face.

  
“I don’t know what you gave me but it’s making me dizzy. How much longer till we can stop?”

  
“Breathe through it, Samantha, it’s just a little longer. Once we cross the pass the roads get wider and I’ll let you stretch your legs.”

  
Whimpering for effect, Sam hunched forward so her hair cascaded in front of her face and obscured the sawing motion at her wrists. “That’s your plan, then? You’ll steal away with me up into the mountains and train me to be your next disciple?”

  
“Samantha.” Jack’s chuckle was weirdly fond. “You know that you’re so much more to me than that. You and I are partners.”

  
“We’re partners, but you won’t tell me your plans.” One zip tie fell away and she started on the second one. “You won’t tell me where we’re going.”

  
“All in good time, love.”

  
“This isn’t love. And I don’t think you really have a plan.” The spring scratched into the skin of her wrist as she sawed at the final tie and she bit her lip in pain. “I think this was spur of the moment and you’re still figuring out what to do. And you _are_ worried about the VCTF.”

  
“It’s time to grow up and lose your illusions about your little task force, Samantha.” Jack’s voice had an edge again. “Admit once and for all that we’re superior to them and move on. With me.”

  
“I don’t think so.” The final zip tie fell away; Sam sat up straighter against the seat, keeping her unbound wrists well below what he could see in the mirror. “You’re going to lose to them.”

  
“Not happening, Samantha.” And the edge in his voice sharpened.

  
“Oh, it’s happening as we speak, Jack. You’re going to lose to Bailey.”

  
“Samantha…”

  
He was struggling to control his emotions and the car as the road curved sharply, and she pressed her advantage.

  
“Bailey Malone is smarter than you, and he scares you, and you know it.”

  
“Samantha, enough!”

  
Jack whipped his head around to glare at her just as Sam threw herself forward, launching her body over his shoulder and grabbing the steering wheel.

  
Jack’s grunt of shock turned into a curse as he tried to shove her away and regain control, and she pulled the wheel hard to the right. The tires screeched against the gravel as the patrol car careened toward the side of the road. Sam saw the yellow sign flying up right in front of them, warning of dangerous curves ahead; it glanced off the passenger door as Jack jerked the wheel back to the left and slammed the brakes. She could feel herself going airborne, gravity lifting her up and vaulting her all the way over the front seat; for a bizarre moment she registered Jack pulling her head into his chest and away from the shattering windshield as the car began to roll.

  
She felt the first impact and then nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

She was floating somewhere in and out of consciousness, grasping at a dream where she was with Chloe reading bedtime stories. _Something about candy and a curious puppy and how good it was to be home…_

“Contusions and likely a concussion, no broken ribs but…feeling it when she wakes up…” A woman’s voice, authoritative and lightly accented near her head. It made her want to abandon her dream and surface, but _she was so tired and Chloe was waiting for her…_

“Don’t get up…can’t believe you walked away from that crash.” A second female voice floated up near her feet, accompanied by the rustling of paper. “…ridiculously lucky people.”

“…a lot luckier if I could remember…up here in the first place…”

The third voice – _his_ voice – jolted her up out of the dream and into reality.

Sam sat bolt upright, startling the white-coated Black woman who was taking her blood pressure and causing the other woman, a tall blonde in a camo jacket, to drop the papers she was holding. She ignored them both and blinked in the too-bright room at the man on the other gurney. Her movements had startled him too; dark eyes widened in surprise under a blood-soaked bandage as he broke into a wide smile.

“Dr. Waters, thank God – everything’s gonna be OK, just let these nice folks –”

“Jack – he’s Jack, he’s Jack of all Trades!” Sam scrabbled up the gurney, willing her legs to move as she grabbed at the woman beside her and pointed across the room. “He’s a killer, I’m an agent with the FBI and he’s a serial killer, we have to get out of here!”

Instead of action she was met with three bewildered stares. Jack winced and started to fuss with the bandage on his head before thinking better of it and settling back onto his gurney. White Coat nodded briefly at Camo Jacket in an unspoken conversation as she placed a restraining hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“Dr. Waters, you’re safe. You were in a bad car accident earlier today and you’re in our hospital now. I’m Dr. Beulah Gaines and this is Mayor Dillon; she found you and Sheriff Boast at the bottom of the gulley.”

“He’s not Ed Boast! I’m telling you, he’s a serial killer and he kidnapped me!” Sam slapped at the restraining hand; Dr. Gaines sighed and hit a button on the IV pump beside the gurney. “I need to call the VCTF, as soon as they get here they’ll…”

Her limbs felt suddenly heavy and comfortably numb, and she realized Dr. Gaines had sedated her; and she had to get out of here now and find Bailey, but Chloe was beckoning again from her dream, maybe if she just rested for five minutes….

The last thing she heard before she fell asleep was his voice, worried and regretful and oddly _wrong_ : “…think I know where this is coming from, she was in Otis following the trail of this Jack guy, probably the last thing she was thinking about…just wish I could remember what I was doing up here with her.”

*

The next time she woke up she sensed she was alone, that _he_ was no longer in the room. Sam stayed still, eyes closed, taking in the scene as supplied by her other senses. She was still recumbent, but there was a soft pillow under her head and the mattress was more comfortable than the hard gurney she’d been on before. Her left arm was sore when she tried to bend it and she could hear the soft hum of the IV machine at her side.

“You can open your eyes, Dr. Waters, I know you’re awake. Your heart rate just jumped.”

The voice at her side startled Sam into doing just that. Dr. Gaines stood beside her, scanning a bedside chart and regarding her over the tops of her glasses. She’d shed the white coat and was in a wrinkled pair of blue scrubs.

“I…where…” Her mouth felt bone-dry and she coughed around the words.

“Here, let me.” Dr. Gaines pushed a button on the side of the hospital bed until she was repositioned and sitting upright, then handed her a cup of ice water. “Don’t drink it too quickly, you’ll feel worse if you throw up.”

Sam nodded and sucked on the straw gratefully, amazed at how much a few sips of water could clear her head. “Where…exactly am I?”

“You’re in the hospital in Sun Valley, Oregon, and I’m sorry this was your introduction to our little town. You were driving on the Valley Pass and you were in a car accident.” Dr. Gaines frowned at her over the chart. “That stretch of road is challenging at the best of times, and coming in on the front end of a storm is a whole other animal. You’re both lucky to have survived.”

“Both of us.” Sam willed herself to breathe normally and project a sense of calm around the words.

“It’s amazing that neither one of you had major trauma. Deep breaths and sudden movements won’t be fun for awhile, but you’ll both make a full recovery. From what Donna told me about the scene it looked like Sheriff Boast pulled you out and saved your life.”

She had a brief flash of memory, the sensation of being lifted up over twisted metal and someone else’s blood dripping across her shirt and _keep your eyes closed Samantha you’re covered in glass_ ; then the images vanished and she was staring across the hospital bed at Dr. Gaines and choosing her words as carefully as possible.

“About Sheriff Boast…Dr. Gaines, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to listen carefully. I’m Agent Samantha Waters with the FBI. For several years I’ve been tracking a serial killer called Jack of all Trades. He thinks he’s playing some kind of twisted romantic game with me and he’s killed a lot of people doing it. Ed Boast is another one of his disguises.”

“Dr. Waters.” Dr. Gaines perched on the side of the bed, hands folded, and damn it, Sam _knew_ exactly where this was going because she’d used that same let’s-be-rational voice many times before. “Sheriff Boast already told us you’d been tracking this Jack, and you thought there was a connection in Otis. Look, you just survived a bad accident and you almost certainly have a concussion. It can take a while for a person’s thought processes to return to normal after that kind of trauma, and it’s not unusual to lose some time and immediate memories leading up to the traumatic event. Is it possible that you’re confusing Jack with the last person you saw before you blacked out?”

“No, no it’s _not_.” Sam shook her head violently but forced her voice to remain calm. “It’s not possible, I know for a fact that he’s Jack, he confessed it all to me when we were alone. He was driving me up into the mountains and he was going to kill me, or try to turn me into a killer, or…” She trailed off as the realization struck her. “I can prove it! I need to borrow a phone to call my colleagues in Atlanta. They can verify everything I’m telling you.”

“That’s going to be a problem.” Dr. Gaines looked pained. “We don’t have any cell towers this high up in the mountains and we only have local service on our land lines.”

“Do you have a police scanner? As long as I can get a message to them so they can come get me –”

“Dr. Waters.” Dr. Gaines was looking at her strangely. “I don’t think you understand. We’re _very_ high up in the mountains here. Sun Valley is completely surrounded by them, and the only way in or out is via that little pass you crashed on today. When we get a winter storm like the one going on out there now –” she nodded toward the windows at the other end of the room “-- the pass shuts down and we lose pretty much all technological ability to communicate with Atlanta or anywhere else. We’re effectively cut off from the world until the weather changes.”

Sam looked across the room toward the small window for the first time and saw the layers of snow and ice coating the sill. As if on cue, the panes rattled as an especially strong gust of wind sent a blast of sleet slamming into the glass. She felt a cold pit form in her stomach that had nothing to do with the wind or the weather.

“How long is this expected to last?”

“This storm should be over by morning,” Dr. Gaines said. “But that doesn’t mean the pass will be cleared out or the ice will be off the towers.”

“And those things…”

“…can take days to weeks. It all depends on how long it takes for the next storm to develop. Best case scenario, we’ll be accessible within a few days.”

“And the worst-case scenario?”

“Mid-February.” Dr. Gaines grimaced sympathetically at the look on Sam’s face. “I’m sorry, Dr. Waters, that’s just life in Sun Valley.”

Sam breathed deeply and counted to ten, willing herself not to burst into tears. “So you’re telling me that nobody at the FBI can get to me and I’m stuck here with a serial killer on the loose until the snow melts. And added to that you don’t believe a word I’m saying about Ed Boast being Jack.”

“I believe that _you_ believe what you’re telling me right now,” Dr. Gaines said gently, “and I’m hoping that things will come into better focus when you and Sheriff Boast regain more of your short-term memories. And the weather report is looking a little more optimistic than not, so let’s see what happens come morning, OK? In the meantime, you need to rest and heal and let us take care of you. Would you like something to eat? I have tons of leftovers from an anniversary dinner that didn’t happen.”

“Thanks, I’m really not very – wait.” Sam almost dropped her cup of water in her haste to sit up. “Did you say Ed and I _both_ lost our memories?”

*

_Otis, California_

“What the hell do you mean we have to wait until the snow melts?”

Bailey Malone looked like he was ready to launch over the desk and strangle the hapless Deputy who cringed back at him. John Grant placed a restraining hand on his boss’ elbow just to be safe; it wouldn’t do to murder one of the only Otis residents who might be remotely helpful to them.

“That’s just life in Sun Valley.” Deputy Dwayne looked like he’d rather be anywhere but in the middle of this conversation. “It’s so high up in the mountains that it gets completely cut off when the weather’s bad. And the weather’s bad all the time up there in the winter ‘cause of those mountains. It’s like one of those fish-and-circle things, y’know?”

The two agents stared blankly at him for a few seconds until John cleared his throat.

“It’s ‘vicious circle’, Dwayne, not fish and – it’s a reciprocal cause and effect that goes around and around like…” He made a circular motion with his index finger.

“Ohhh.” Dwyane nodded seriously. “That makes a lot more sense.”

Bailey closed his eyes briefly against the headache that was threatening to explode at the base of his skull. “What aren’t you getting here, Deputy? You’re missing your sheriff, we’re missing our agent, and there’s an Otis police cruiser that crashed in the mountains. What about this scenario sounds like it’s fine to wait around until spring?”

“Dwayne, let me make sure I have the whole timing thing here.” John tapped Malone’s elbow again and gave his best attempt at a disarming, collegial smile. “You haven’t seen Sheriff Boast for two days, correct? That’s almost exactly the same time that our records show Agent Waters returned to Otis. Then last night you got a call from the sheriff of Sun Valley that there was an Otis cruiser that had run off the road?”

“Yes sir, that’s correct. Except it was the Mayor who called, Sun Valley doesn’t have a sheriff at the moment due to old Sheriff Webster having a bit of a problem with –” he pantomimed drinking from a bottle, then noticed Bailey’s darkening expression. “Um, anyway, Mayor Dillon was on patrol and spotted the car. She was able to get a partial message to us on the scanner before the storm took out the towers.”

“Did she mention any people in the car?”

“No, I think she was going to say something when the scanner cut off.” Dwayne shrugged helplessly. “All I heard was an Otis cruiser had gone into the gulley off Suicide Pass – but she didn’t specifically mention explosions or dead bodies, so that’s good, right?”

Bailey’s headache had gone into full attack mode at the words “Suicide Pass.”

“I want to be called the minute you hear anything from Sheriff Boast or that town, Deputy. John, let’s get back to the car and get George on the phone.”

John was hitting redial on his cell as they walked back to the sedan; George picked up on the second ring, the concern in his voice evident even over the speaker. “Hey, I’m sitting here with Grace, is there any news?”

“None of the good kind.” John settled into the passenger seat and rubbed his eyes wearily.

Bailey glanced sharply over from the driver’s seat. “George, do you have any updates on where Sam might have gone?”

“Nothing new. Her credit card records confirm her plane tickets and the rental car she picked up. She wasn’t using her cell and she didn’t log onto the internet, at least not with any of her known credentials. The trail gets cold once she gets to Otis.”

“Bailey, did you and John find out anything from the locals?” Grace’s voice broke in.

“Yes, unfortunately.” Bailey sighed, knowing he was about to spread the anxiety to Atlanta. “Georgie, I need you to look up Sun Valley, Oregon. We think Sam and Ed Boast were headed in that direction.”

“Give me a second,” George responded just as Grace asked “What makes you think they were going there?”

“Because they both disappeared around the same time and an Otis police car was found crashed on the mountain pass.” Bailey paused for a moment. “There’s no report of accident victims found, but apparently a storm blew in and cut off communications before they could relay all the details.”

“Here we go: Sun Valley, Oregon.” They could hear a clicking sound in the background which they knew came from George Fraley’s fingers flying over his keyboard. “Established 1855, population 200-ish, known for farming, lumber and...yak ranching, huh. It’s only about a hundred miles north of Otis, but it’s a vertical north right into the mountain range, which would explain why it’s 40 degrees in Otis right now and full-on winter up there.”

“Can you find us a way to get there?”

George hummed. “It won’t be easy. According to the NOAA images that I’m definitely not hacking into right now, there’s only that one very small pass leading in and out. A major storm like the one they just had would take that out indefinitely.”

“What about access by air?”

“There’s no airfield to speak of, and no plane’s making it across those ranges in this weather anyway. Sorry Bailey.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Grace said. “What would Sam be looking for that would make her want to travel anywhere with Sheriff Boast?”

John sighed and leaned back against the headrest. “Not making sense seems to be the theme here.”

“I don’t want to hear about impossible weather or how many damned mountains are in the way. Sam is out there and she could be hurt or in danger.” Bailey slammed the car door decisively. “John and I are headed back to the Fence to see if we can find anything; Grace and George, get back out here as fast as you can. And Georgie, call in every favor with every federal agency you can think of that might be able to help us. I don’t care if it leads to Sun Valley or friggin’ Brigadoon, we need to get over that pass _now_.”


End file.
